Most threw themselves at his feet with weeping and entreaty; some one or two slunk in confusion from the apartment, and were heard riding off. Unnoticed in such a scene, Darsie, his sister, and Fairford, drew together, and held each other by the hands, as those who, when a vessel is about to founder in the storm, determine to take their chance of life and death together.
Amid this scene of confusion, a gentleman, plainly dressed in a riding-habit, with a black cockade in his hat, but without any arms except a COUTEAU-DE-CHASSE, walked into the apartment without ceremony. He was a tall, thin, gentlemanly man, with a look and bearing decidedly military. He had passed through their guards, if in the confusion they now maintained any, without stop or question, and now stood, almost unarmed, among armed men, who nevertheless, gazed on him as on the angel of destruction.
'You look coldly on me, gentlemen,' he said. 'Sir Richard Glendale—my Lord ———, we were not always such strangers. Ha, Pate-in-Peril, how is it with you? and you, too, Ingoldsby—I must not call you by any other name—why do you receive an old friend so coldly? But you guess my errand.'
'And are prepared for it, general,' said Redgauntlet; 'we are not men to be penned up like sheep for the slaughter.'
'Pshaw! you take it too seriously—let me speak but one word with you.'
'No words can shake our purpose,' said Redgauntlet, were your whole command, as I suppose is the case, drawn round the house.'
'I am certainly not unsupported,' said the general; 'but if you would hear me'—
'Hear ME, sir,' said the Wanderer, stepping forward; 'I suppose I am the mark you aim at—I surrender myself willingly, to save these gentlemen's danger—let this at least avail in their favour.'
An exclamation of 'Never, never!' broke from the little body of partisans, who threw themselves round the unfortunate prince, and would have seized or struck down Campbell, had it not been that he remained with his arms folded, and a look, rather indicating impatience because they would not hear him, than the least apprehension of violence at their hand.
At length he obtained a moment's silence. 'I do not,' he said, 'know this gentleman'—(making a profound bow to the unfortunate prince)—'I do not wish to know him; it is a knowledge which would suit neither of us.'
'Our ancestors, nevertheless, have been well acquainted,' said Charles, unable to suppress, even at that hour of dread and danger, the painful recollections of fallen royalty.
'In one word, General Campbell,' said Redgauntlet, 'is it to be peace or war? You are a man of honour, and we can trust you.'
'I thank you, sir,' said the general; 'and I reply, that the answer to your question rests with yourself. Come, do not be fools, gentlemen; there was perhaps no great harm meant or intended by your gathering together in this obscure corner, for a bear-bait or a cock-fight, or whatever other amusement you may have intended, but it was a little imprudent, considering how you stand with government, and it has occasioned some anxiety. Exaggerated accounts of your purpose have been laid before government by the information of a traitor in your own counsels; and I was sent down post to take the command of a sufficient number of troops, in case these calumnies should be found to have any real foundation. I have come here, of course, sufficiently supported both with cavalry and infantry, to do whatever might be necessary; but my commands are—and I am sure they agree with my inclination—to make no arrests, nay, to make no further inquiries of any kind, if this good assembly will consider their own interest so far as to give up their immediate purpose, and return quietly home to their own houses.'
'What!—all?' exclaimed Sir Richard Glendale—'all, without exception?'
'ALL, without one single exception' said the general; 'such are my orders. If you accept my terms, say so, and make haste; for things may happen to interfere with his Majesty's kind purposes towards you all.'
'Majesty's kind purposes!' said the Wanderer. 'Do I hear you aright, sir?'
'I speak the king's very words, from his very lips,' replied the general. ''I will,' said his Majesty, 'deserve the confidence of my subjects by reposing my security in the fidelity of the millions who acknowledge my title—in the good sense and prudence of the few who continue, from the errors of education, to disown it.' His Majesty will not even believe that the most zealous Jacobites who yet remain can nourish a thought of exciting a civil war, which must be fatal to their families and themselves, besides spreading bloodshed and ruin through a peaceful land. He cannot even believe of his kinsman, that he would engage brave and generous though mistaken men, in an attempt which must ruin all who have escaped former calamities; and he is convinced, that, did curiosity or any other motive lead that person to visit this country, he would soon see it was his wisest course to return to the continent; and his Majesty compassionates his situation too much to offer any obstacle to his doing so.'
'Is this real?' said Redgauntlet. 'Can you mean this? Am I—are all, are any of these gentlemen at liberty, without interruption, to embark in yonder brig, which, I see, is now again approaching the shore?'
'You, sir—all—any of the gentlemen present,' said the general,—'all whom the vessel can contain, are at liberty to embark uninterrupted by me; but I advise none to go off who have not powerful reasons unconnected with the present meeting, for this will be remembered against no one.'
'Then, gentlemen,' said Redgauntlet, clasping his hands together as the words burst from him, 'the cause is lost for ever!'
General Campbell turned away to the window, as if to avoid hearing what they said. Their consultation was but momentary; for the door of escape which thus opened was as unexpected as the exigence was threatening.
'We have your word of honour for our protection,' said Sir Richard Glendale, 'if we dissolve our meeting in obedience to your summons?'
'You have, Sir Richard,' answered the general.
'And I also have your promise,' said Redgauntlet, 'that I may go on board yonder vessel, with any friend whom I may choose to accompany me?'
Not only that, Mr. Ingoldsby—or I WILL call you Mr. Redgauntlet once more—you may stay in the offing for a tide, until you are joined by any person who may remain at Fairladies. After that, there will be a sloop of war on the station, and I need not say your condition will then become perilous.'
'Perilous it should not be, General Campbell,' said Redgauntlet, 'or more perilous to others than to us, if others thought as I do even in this extremity.'
'You forget yourself, my friend,' said the unhappy Adventurer; you forget that the arrival of this gentleman only puts the cope-stone on our already adopted resolution to abandon our bull-fight or by whatever other wild name this headlong enterprise may be termed. I bid you farewell, unfriendly friends—I bid you farewell,' (bowing to the general) 'my friendly foe—I leave this strand as I landed upon it, alone and to return no more!'
'Not alone,' said Redgauntlet, 'while there is blood in the veins of my father's son.'
'Not alone,' said the other gentlemen present, stung with feelings which almost overpowered the better reasons under which they had acted. 'We will not disown our principles, or see your person endangered.'
'If it be only your purpose to see the gentleman to the beach,' said General Campbell, 'I will myself go with you. My presence among you, unarmed, and in your power, will be a pledge of my friendly intentions, and will overawe, should such be offered, any interruption on the part of officious persons.'
'Be it so,' said the Adventurer, with the air of a prince to a subject, not of one who complied with the request of an enemy too powerful to be resisted.
They left the apartment—they left the house—an unauthenticated and dubious, but appalling, sensation of terror had already spread itself among the inferior retainers, who had so short time before strutted, and bustled, and thronged the doorway and the passages. A report had arisen, of which the origin could not be traced, of troops advancing towards the spot in considerable numbers; and men who, for one reason or other, were most of them amenable to the arm of power, had either shrunk into stables or corners, or fled the place entirely. There was solitude on the landscape excepting the small party which now moved towards the rude pier, where a boat lay manned, agreeably to Redgauntlet's orders previously given.
The last heir of the Stuarts leant on Redgauntlet's arm as they walked towards the beach; for the ground was rough, and he no longer possessed the elasticity of limb and of spirit which had, twenty years before, carried him over many a Highland hill as light as one of their native deer. His adherents followed, looking on the ground, their feelings struggling against the dictates of their reason.
General Campbell accompanied them with an air of apparent ease and indifference, but watching, at the same time, and no doubt with some anxiety, the changing features of those who acted in this extraordinary scene.
